Shallow Foundations The most important thing isto Keep the most important thing the most important thing. Shallow foundations are those that transmit structural loads to the near-surface soils These include spread footing foundations and mat foundations. This chapter introduces both types of foundations, then Chapters 6 to 10 discuss the various geotechnical and structural design aspects, 5A SPREAD FOOTINGS A spread footing (also known as a footer or simply a footing) isan enlargement a the bot- fom of a column or bearing wall that spreads the applied structural loads over a suffi. ‘iently large soil area. Typically, each column and each bearing wall has its own spread footing, so cach structure may include dozens of individual footings Spread footings are by far the most common type of foundation, primarily because oftheir low cost and ease of construction. They are most often used in small to medium. Size structures on sites with moderate to good soil conditions, and can even be used on Some large structures when they are located at sites underlain by exceptionally good soil Or shallow bedrock. Spread footings may be builtin different shapes and sizes to accommodate individ Wal needs, as shown in Figure 5.1 These include the following: * Square spread footings (or simply square footings) have plan dimensions of BXB. ‘The depth from the ground surface to the bottom of the footing is D and the thick= ‘ess is 7. Square footings usually support a single centrally-located column, 145other str of the € cannot t rotate ar oO footing) nected t the ecce a strvett Materiz Before t shown i specific from rar lite ten ural sire Al large an example Chicago 1948). # that wer Tt Chicago includec the steel modifies They pr Combined ing shapes and dimeasios. Figure $1 Spread «+ Rectangular spread footings have plan dimensions of BxL. where L is the longest dimension. These are useful when obstructions prevent construction of a square footing with a sufficiently large base area and when large moment loads are preset «+ Circular spread footings are round in plan view. These are most frequently used foundations for light standards, flagpoles, and power transmission fines. If thest foundations extend to a large depth (.e., D/B greater than about 3), they may be hhave more like a deep foundation (see Chapter 11).ations agest uate sent “das hese | ‘spread Footings 147 *+ Continuous spread footings (also known as wall footings o strip footings) are used to support bearing walls, + Combjned footings ate those that support more than one column, These are useful ‘when columns are located to0 close together for each to have its own footing, + Ring spread footings are continuous footings that have been wrapped into a circle. This type of footing is commonly used to support the walls of above-ground circu Jar storage tanks. However, the contents of these tanks are spread evenly across the total base area, and this weight is probably greater than that of the tank itself. There fore, the geotechnical analyses of tanks usually treat them as circular foundations with diameters equal to the diameter ofthe tank. Sometimes it is necessary to build spread footings very close to a property line, an- other structure, or some other place where no construction may occur beyond one or more of the exterior walls. This circumstance is shown in Figure 5.2. Because such a footing ‘cannot be centered beneath the column, the load is eccentric. This can cause the footing to rotate and thus produce undesirable moments and displacements in the column, One solution to this problem is to use a strap footing (also known as a cantilever footing), which consists of an eccentrically loaded footing under the exterior column con nected to the frst interior column using a grade beam. This arrangement, which is similar to a combined footing, provides the necessary moment in the exterior footing to counter the eccentric load. Sometimes we use grade beams to connect all of the spread footings in structure to provide a more rigid foundation system. Materials Before the mid-nineteenth-century, almost all spread footings were made of masonry, as shown in Figure 5.3. Dimension-stone footings were built of stones cut and dressed to specific sizes and fit together with minimal gaps, while rubble-stone footings were built from random size material joined with mortar (Peck etal, 1974) These footings had very litle tensile strength, so builders had to use large height-to-widh ratios o keep the flex- ural sitessestolerably small and thus avoid tensile failures Although masonry footings were satisfactory for small structures, they became Jarge and heavy when used in heavier structures, often encroaching into the basement. For example, the masonry footings beneath the nine-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago (built in 1885) had a combined weight equal to that of one ofthe stories (Peck. 1048), As larger structures became more common, it was necessary to develop footings that were shorter and lighter, yet still had the same base dimensions. This change required structural materials that could sustain flexural stresses. The steel grillage footings used in the ten-story Montauk Block Building in Chicago in 1882, may have been the firs spread footings designed to resist flexure. They included several layers of railroad tracks, as shown in Figure 5.4. The flexural strength of the steel permitted construction of a short and lighweight footing. Stee! grillage footings, Modified to use T-beams instead of railroad tracks, soon became the dominant design, ‘They prevailed until the advent of reinforced concrete in the early twentieth century.